


did you know there are a lot of go-kart places called "the adventure zone"?

by louser



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comedy, F/F, Fluff, Hurloane, Post-Canon, alternate title: the invention of the fantasy go-kart, and the idea, i guess? it sort of turned out that way, story and song spoilers, the smallest amount of angst possible, the title is based off of something griffo said forever ago, which is still a little bit given the situation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 07:33:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12338271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louser/pseuds/louser
Summary: Maybe it would be best just to leave it at a kind "when you're older" (and a pair of more responsible adults might have done just that) but Sloane and Hurley are not responsible adults by any stretch of the imagination, and the truth of the matter is that they don't want to.





	did you know there are a lot of go-kart places called "the adventure zone"?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote all of this in one go without, like, any breaks so please tell me if there are any mistakes!

The thought has plagued Hurley ever since the last time the kids had come to visit.

It's always fun when Merle swings by with Mavis and Mookie, Angus usually in tow as well and carrying the latest Caleb Cleveland novel under his arm. They make a point of visiting the cherry blossom tree that hosts the souls of both Hurley and Sloane, and together the group of them will watch a race, swap stories (Merle attempts to recount the story of throwing a dead body over the cliff to the pair near-every time, sometimes realizing that Hurley was never supposed to know, sometimes not), and the like. Several times now the older two children have sat in with Sloane and Hurley as they did a slow run-through in the battle wagons. They seemed to like it well enough, Angus the slightest bit more than cautious Mavis, but neither ever expressed an outright fear or discomfort, and perhaps that is what made it so disconcerting when Mookie climbed up into the driver's seat of Hurley's wagon at the end of their last meet-up.

"My turn, my turn!" he laughed, and nearly fell back out of the wagon and onto the ground in his haphazard climb. Hurley turned to Sloane, who had just exited her own wagon with Mavis, and gave her a silent plea for help, though maintaining a small smile while speaking to Mookie. "Maybe you can ride next time, little guy. We don't want you to get hurt."

"But I wanna drive it now!" he complained loudly. 

That was when it struck. Mavis swept in to encourage her brother to behave himself, but she herself was looking at the steering wheel with a certain curiosity- one that Hurley knew well- because it was what she had felt, too, when she first began her life as a racer. The kids wanted to drive the wagons themselves. 

Weeks have passed since then, and their visitors are long gone at this point, but still the thought drifts in and out of her conscious mind at random intervals. On more than one occasion, Sloane has been forced to pull her out of the way of passing people, and horses, and wagons as she wanders around lost in thought. But she can tell that Sloane is thinking hard about the idea as well. One of the perks of their... peculiar situation is the increased sense of connectivity between them, the way that they can know each other's feelings and thoughts without speaking. Though, they'd gotten pretty good at that even before the whole dryad thing. Battle wagon racing was dependent knowing what your partner needed at a moment's notice, even when they couldn't tell you what it was over the noise. 

Which just brings it back to the problem at hand: what are they supposed to do know?

True, racing has become much safer since their reawakening, but Sloane and Hurley would never let the kids do it by themselves. Fair might be the new way to play, but that doesn't mean that all of the danger is gone. No, there's still too much that could go wrong. Maybe it would be best just to leave it at a kind "when you're older" (and a pair of more responsible adults might have done just that) but Sloane and Hurley are not responsible adults by any stretch of the imagination, and the truth of the matter is that they don't  _want_ to. Racing is what brought them together, what taught them both that sometimes throwing caution to the wind and pushing the limits was the best thing you could do for yourself. Sharing that joy and that freedom is what drove (no pun intended) the two to reform the battle wagon racing circuit in the first place- it's what makes them so eager to share it with the kids, and with the youth of Goldcliff at large. 

"Babe?" Hurley thinks late one night as she and Sloane lay near-dormant in their tree. 

"Mhmm?" Sloane replies. The thought is slow and sleepy, a warm murmur. 

"Babe, what if we just made it smaller?"

"...Mhmm?"

"Like, the cars are small. And they go slow. -er. Not too slow, that'd be boring."

The other consciousness within the tree seems to awaken slightly, and the larger, somewhat elvish form in the trunk appears to settle into the smaller one the slightest bit. "Yeah? That might work."

"I don't know where they would drive though. They can't go on the usual track. It'd be too hard to keep watch over 'em."

"Maybe they should just go in circles."

"Boooooring."

"Fun circles. With ramps."

"Good ideas like that are why I love you." 

If it was possible to feel a smile, Hurley could in that moment, radiating off of Sloane like heat from the sun. In moments like these she misses being flesh and blood, having the ability to feel things the same way physically, to run her fingers through her girlfriend's hair without worrying that she'll pull out petals by accident. She misses heat, and cold, and sometimes even pain. She misses the way she used to feel when Sloane ran a hand down her arm. 

"Hey." It's Sloane's thought, serious but gentle in the way that only Sloane can be. "I'm... I'm happy- no matter where we are, no matter what we are- as long as we get to be together. It took a stupid belt to teach me that, and I'm never taking you for granted again."

* * *

Brainstorming is all well and good, but work is what gets them there. Months are spent getting everything together; Hurley builds the wagons, Sloane does all the cool enchantments, they both work on the course, and they enlist the help of the entire Goldcliff militia to make sure everything is safe and up to code (the members of which most certainly do not mess around on the equipment as they do so, how could anyone think that?). 

Opening day was supposed to be small, tame, for the sake of not pushing the equipment on its first time in use, but both of them should have known that nothing goes according to plan in Faerun. Merle, it turns out, had spoken to Magnus about the whole affair, who had spoken to nearly every member of the Bureau of Benevolence, as well as Taako, who had spread the news to both his family and Ren, who had spoken to the entirety of Refuge, and the list goes on and on. The crowd was huge, much more than they had anticipated. 

"That's aaaaaaaaaareallylongline," Hurley says through gritted teeth. 

Sloane nods. "I have to agree, and I don't look forward to greeting them all."

* * *

"Knock 'im out of the course, sweetie!" Merle shouts out from the sidelines as Mavis and Angus drive, neck-n-neck, on their final lap. Unsurprisingly, it had been a clean race so far, with the only contact between their cars being a rough patch at the beginning as they struggled to gain control of their vehicles. Not that either Hurley or Sloane is worried; they'd made sure that the wagons were safe for any crashes that might take place, with straps built in to keep anyone from flying out in the case of anything particularly gnarly ("Yeah, the ones you wear? Maybe not the best for this," Hurley told Sloane during the building process. "Don't want a repeat of Taako"). 

Mookie trails behind, much slower than the others, knocking himself into the rails every few feet (a small "Dang it!" can be heard every time), but otherwise looking like he's having the time of his life. 

* * *

There is at one point a moment where they all fear for the integrity of the course, and it is, of course, when the adults begin to try the new wagons for themselves. And by adults, they mean the race between Taako, Lup, Kravitz, and Barry, and later the race between Magnus, Carey, and Killian. Both are catastrophic beyond words, but if there had been any shadow of a doubt at the outset that their quest for safety had been successful, it was now abated. 

"Maybe it's just me," Sloane laughs as she leans against one of the railings of the course between the two catastrophies, "but I find it pretty impressive that this stuff could withstand magic missile _and_ fireball."

"It has my seal of approval!" calls Lup as she stumbles away from her wagon. At some point after entering the park she had apparently scribbled  _HELL ON WHEELS_  onto the back of her leather jacket in red ink, as Hurley can see as she turns around to yank Barry out of his own wagon and run with him to the back of the line once more. 

And it's funny. It's hilarious to Hurley in that moment that this is something they created- something good, something fun, something that can teach their love of racing, something that brings people together, something that they can share with all of these wonderful people, no matter how rambunctious they might be, and feel for a moment like they belong somewhere... no, not feel like. They do belong here, with these friends that they've made. And it's so funny that she can't stop laughing. She laughs until she's almost crying, and suddenly Sloane is laughing too, and a pair of wagons zooms past on the track behind them, and the people driving them are laughing too.

They realize, just the smallest bit too late, that the drivers are Carey and Magnus, and the next thing they hear is a crash.

* * *

"Thank you very much for letting us race today," Mavis says before chasing after her father and brother. 

Darkness has settled over the track quickly and easily. Most everyone has gone by now, with the exception of the reaper crew and Angus, who is staying with them for the weekend. They're chatting loudly near the entrance, however, and obviously about ready to be on their way. Angus waves at Mavis as she passes, prompting Taako and Lup to nudge him with their elbows at the same time. 

The crickets chirp quietly as Sloane and Hurley look over the course that they created. 

"We did good today, huh?" Hurley says with a grin, entwining her fingers with Sloane's, and there doesn't even need to be an answer. They sit like that for a moment, just drinking in the night and rush of the whole day, when suddenly there's a spark from Sloane. 

"We were very good responsible adults today," she begins slowly, and Hurley agrees. "So do you want to see if those guys over there will cast gust of wind underneath us while we drive off the cliff?"

Hurley can't help but let out a bark of a laugh. "Babe, good ideas like that are why I love you."

 

 

 


End file.
